032 At the beginning of the 20th century, when Jerusalem, still centered around its ancient core, was surrounded by agricultural land and orchards, 20 mysterious earth-and-stone mounds rose above the city’s western horizon, clearly visible from...

048 I believe I may have discovered the world’s earliest poorbox—a tangible expression of Israel’s ancient concern for the needy among its people. On one of my frequent visits to Jerusalem’s Rockefeller Museum, I noticed an object that I had seen...

026 To appreciate fully the significance of the unique altar and cult center we are excavating on Mt. Ebal, one must first understand the archaeological context in which these discoveries were made. We found the altar and cult center, not in the...

052 The usual translation of Miqsat Ma‘ase Ha-Torah—MMT—obscures its relationship to Paul’s letters. This Dead Sea Scroll and Paul use the very same phrase. On March 15, 1988, as part of my duties as the new graduate research assistant to...

048 In “The Peculiar Headrests for the Dead in First Temple Times,” BAR 13:04, Professor Othmar Keel takes issue with an earlier BAR article in which Amos Kloner and I discussed these stone headrests carved on top of burial benches (“Jerusalem...

028 030 After 12 years of surveying and excavating in the land allotted in the Bible to the tribe of Manasseh, it is now possible to suggest new ideas on the emergence of Israel in Canaan,...

018 018 Almost from the beginning, the site of el-Ahwat was different—or, shall we say, strange. We first discovered it in 1992 during our archaeological survey of the hill country of Manasseh...

038 In this issue four prominent scholars tell BAR readers how the scrolls changed their lives. Harvard’s Frank Cross is the doyen of Dead Sea Scroll scholars; his views come in an interview with BAR editor Hershel Shanks. In the pages that...

048 049 Recent attacks on the historicity of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon (in the tenth century B.C.) have focused on the scant archaeological remains that have been discovered in...

040 First-time visitors to Jerusalem are often surprised to learn that two very different sites vie for recognition as the burial place of Jesus. One is, as its name implies, the Holy Sepulchre Church; it is located in a crowded area of the...